Los Angeles Staff
The Los Angeles Staff was an underground newspaper published in Los Angeles in the 1970s. It came into existence as a result of the temporary demise of the Los Angeles Free Press, which had been founded and published by Art Kunkin. Around 1970, the L.A. Free Press failed to make an employee tax payment and the paper was seized by the Internal Revenue Service. Kunkin managed to sell the "logo" of the paper, the phrase "The Los Angeles Free Press" to publisher Marvin Miller, who then resold it to some other parties in San Diego, California. The staff of the Free Press, led by editor Brian Kirby and art director Phil Wilson, left to and form their own newspaper, calling it "The Staff". They first moved into quarters on Santa Monica Blvd near Cahuenga Blvd., in Hollywood, California. They later relocated to Hollywood Blvd., just west of Western Ave. in offices above a movie theater that was at that time showing soft-core porn.
The Staff was an alternative, or "underground" newspaper, publishing many anti-war articles, and also publishing substantially on the music scene and popular culture. It ran for 90 weekly issues before it folded. The entire second section of the paper, normally devoted to the arts and music, was put together by the music group Devo. On another occasion, Hunter S. Thompson came by the paper for a social visit with some of the staff, after they had published a review of his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.[1]
The food writer Colman Andrews penned his first regular restaurant reviews for the paper, beginning in 1971, under the pseudonym Mr. Food. (Former butcher Art Ginsberg didn't start using that name for his Mr. Food cooking shows until four years later.)